Africa/Middle East: Saudi Migrant Expulsions

Editor's Note

Deadly risks to migrants and abuses of migrants' rights are found
around the world. Yet while deaths of migrants on the US-Mexican
border and in the Mediterranean sometimes gain news coverage and
have been widely studied, those on other migration pathways are
most often invisible to all but those most directly affected. This
is certainly true of the journeys from the Horn of Africa to Middle
Eastern countries in the arc from Egypt to the Gulf.

Over the last month, over 100,000 Ethiopian migrants have been
expelled from Saudi Arabia, as part of a government crackdown on
foreign workers. This AfricaFocus Bulletin, not sent out by email
but available on the web at http://www.africafocus.org/docs13/migr1312b.php, contains several
background reports on this escalation of abuses against migrants in
that country, as well as on the legal situation in Gulf states
preventing defense of their rights. Two are from Human Rights
Watch, a third from the blog http://www.redressonline.com/

Another AfricaFocus Bulletin, sent out by email today and available
on the web at http://www.africafocus.org/docs13/migr1312a.php,
contains excerpts from a new report on one of the most harrowing
journeys, of Eritreans who are trafficked for ransom through the
Sinai Desert. The full report, with devastating personal stories,
is available at http://tinyurl.com/pseamzv

Such denials of migrants' rights, it is important to note, are
symptoms of a system of global apartheid in which rights and
privilege are explicitly linked to country of citizenship and in
which systematic abuses of vulnerable people living outside their
country of citizenship are pervasive. For those calling for the
world today to emulate Nelson Mandela's commitment to fight
injustice, this is among the most critical challenges of our time.

Saudi Arabia: Labor Crackdown Violence

Ethiopian Workers Allege Attacks, Poor Detention Conditions

(Beirut) -- Ethiopian migrant workers have been the victims of
physical assaults, some of them fatal, in Saudi Arabia following a
government crackdown on foreign workers. Many workers seeking to
return home are being held in makeshift detention centers without
adequate food or shelter.

Human Rights Watch spoke to five Ethiopian migrant workers in Saudi
Arabia. Four Ethiopians in Riyadh told Human Rights Watch that the
attacks began after November 4, 2013, when authorities resumed a
campaign to arrest foreign workers who they claim are violating
labor laws. Security forces have arrested or deported tens of
thousands of workers. Saudi officials and state-controlled media
have said that migrant workers have also been responsible for
violence, including attacks on Saudi citizens, in the wake of the
crackdown.

"Saudi authorities have spent months branding foreign workers as
criminals in the media, and stirring up anti-migrant sentiment to
justify the labor crackdown," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East
director. "Now the Saudi government needs to rein in Saudi citizens
who are attacking foreign workers."

Saudi authorities should immediately investigate assaults on
Ethiopian and other migrant workers by security forces and Saudi
citizens, and hold those responsible for violent crimes to account,
Human Rights Watch said. Saudi and Ethiopian authorities should
work to speedily repatriate undocumented foreign workers waiting in
makeshift holding centers, if they have no fear of returning home,
and ensure that they get adequate food, shelter, and medical care.

The most violent attacks occurred on the evening of November 9 in
areas around the Manfouha neighborhood of southern Riyadh, where
Ethiopian residents make up a majority of residents, according to
local activists. Two Ethiopian migrant workers told Human Rights
Watch that they saw groups of people they assumed to be Saudi
citizens armed with sticks, swords, machetes, and firearms, attack
foreign workers.

One of the Ethiopians, a 30-year-old supervisor at a private
company, said he heard shouts and screams from the street, and left
his home near Manfouha to see what was happening. When he arrived
near Bank Rajahi on the road to the Yamama neighborhood, west of
Manfouha, he saw a large group of Ethiopians crying and shouting
around the dead bodies of three Ethiopians, one of whom he said had
been shot, and two others who had been beaten to death. He said six
others appeared to be badly injured.

He said he saw Saudis whom he called shabab ("young men" in
Arabic), and uniformed security forces attack the Ethiopians who
had gathered. The shabab were using swords and machetes, while some
of the uniformed officers were beating the migrants with metal
police truncheons, and other officers were firing bullets into the
air to disperse the crowd. He said that he narrowly escaped serious
injury when a Saudi man swung a sword at his head. It missed, but
hit his arm, requiring stitches to close the wound.

The other Ethiopian witness, a 26-year-old undocumented day laborer
who lives in Manfouha, told Human Rights Watch that he was sitting
among a group of 23 Ethiopians in a private home on Street 20 on
the evening of November 9 when a group of 20 shabab with machetes
and pistols broke down the door and attacked the people inside. He
and five other Ethiopians escaped by climbing to the roof, but he
does not know what happened to the other 17 men.

Another Ethiopian worker who lives nearby, but who did not witness
the violence, told Human Rights Watch that on the afternoon of
November 9, he was sitting inside the Ethiopian community center
and school compound five kilometers from Manfouha when 35 Ethiopian
men came to the center.

The Ethiopian men said that groups of armed men were forcing their
way into homes in Manfouha, removing the men, and holding the women
inside. The person who spoke with Human Rights Watch said that the
men showed him as proof a mobile phone video they said they
surreptitiously filmed from a distance that appeared to show a
Saudi man raping one of the Ethiopian men's wives. He said the
group told him that 10 other women were missing.

Since the evening of November 9, Ethiopian activists have
circulated dozens of YouTube videos and other photos purporting to
show Saudi men in civilian clothes and security forces attacking
Ethiopian workers in Manfouha. Human Rights Watch cannot confirm
the authenticity of these videos, though the incidents they purport
to show largely match the witness accounts.

Saudi authorities should ensure that all incidents of apparent use
of violence and abuse in Manfouha are swiftly and transparently
investigated, and that anyone who committed a crime is brought to
justice, including members of the security forces, Human Rights
Watch said. The authorities should both address any unnecessary and
unlawful use of force by security forces and take steps to prevent
ordinary citizens from harassing or molesting migrants based on
suspicions that they are violating labor laws.

Some Saudi sources blame the migrants for instigating the violence.
Arab News, a local English-language newspaper, said that Saudi
security forces entered Manfouha on the evening of November 9 to
restore the peace after a group of Ethiopian men "went on a rampage
in anger at the Kingdom's ongoing campaign against illegal foreign
workers." It stated that one Saudi man died after "rioters" hit him
with rocks, and that the 65 injured were "mostly Saudis and legal
residents." The Sabq news website reported on November 14 that
Ethiopian migrants had stabbed to death a 14-year-old Saudi boy in
Manfouha, reportedly asking him, "Are you Saudi?" before attacking
him.

The five Ethiopian migrant workers who spoke to Human Rights Watch
said that many undocumented Ethiopian workers in Manfouha have
turned themselves in to the authorities since November 9, fearing
violence from police and groups of Saudi citizens. One worker
described the atmosphere in Manfouha as a "battleground." The
Ethiopian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Muhammed Hassan Kabiera,
told Arab News on November 13 that at least 23,000 Ethiopians, many
from the Manfouha area, had surrendered to Saudi authorities for
repatriation.

The Ethiopian workers said that authorities transported the
Ethiopians to makeshift holding facilities across the area,
including a large wedding hall and the campus of Princess Nora Bint
Abdul Rahman University. One man told Human Rights Watch that he
visited the wedding hall and saw thousands of foreign workers
detained there, men in one area, and women and children in another,
both inside and outside the building.

He said that Saudi guards give the detainees only one small meal of
rice per day, and provide no access to medical attention. He said
that other Ethiopians in the neighborhood are trying to help the
detainees by bringing food, and that many at the hall had been left
without shelter during recent heavy rainfall in Riyadh. One
Ethiopian in Riyadh said he escaped from the wedding hall after
officials held him in an area outside the building for 10 days,
failing to supply the detainees with sufficient food, which forced
them to buy food from Saudi guards.

Two Ethiopians in Riyadh told Human Rights Watch that people they
knew who turned themselves in had not known that authorities would
hold them in makeshift detention centers. They said that Saudi
officials told them they would take them directly to Ethiopia.
Saudi police officials say that the kingdom is spending one million
Saudi Riyals (US$267,000) per day to house and feed thousands of
detained Ethiopians.

On November 19, the Ethiopian foreign minister, Dr. Tedros Adhanom,
announced that the government is doing "everything possible to
repatriate citizens from Saudi Arabia within 14 to 25 days."

"Saudi authorities say they are carrying out a crackdown on migrant
workers humanely, but keeping thousands of people in makeshift
centers without adequate food, shelter, or medical attention could
lead to humanitarian disaster," Stork said. "Saudi officials should
release the detainees or send them home immediately."

Migrant Worker Campaign Background

Over nine million migrant workers in Saudi Arabia--more than half
the work force--ill manual, clerical, and service jobs. Many suffer
multiple abuses and labor exploitation, sometimes amounting to
forced labor, Human Rights Watch said.

Saudi officials say that the ongoing labor crackdown against
foreign workers, which includes road checkpoints and raids on
businesses, is part of Saudi Arabia's effort to combat high levels
of unemployment among Saudi citizens by opening jobs previously
filled by undocumented workers. Those targeted include workers who
do not have the proper residency or work permits, and workers who
are caught working for an employer who is not their legal sponsor.
According to local media outlets, authorities have arrested and
deported thousands of workers since November 4.

The violence between Saudis and Ethiopians follows months of local
press reports blaming Ethiopian female domestic workers for brutal
attacks against Saudi employers. In July, Saudi officials claimed
that over 200 Ethiopian women had been detained in two months for
"psychological problems," leading the labor ministry to temporarily
ban the recruitment of Ethiopian workers to the country.

In October, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in turn,
stopped processing applications for Ethiopians to travel to Saudi
Arabia, citing concerns over poor labor conditions for Ethiopian
migrants.

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly called on the Saudi government to
abolish aspects of the kafala or "sponsorship" system that create
conditions for abuse, including rules requiring a worker to obtain
permission from his or her employer to change jobs or leave the
country. These rules leave foreign workers with little option for
redress in cases of abuse or labor violations and force them into
under-the-table work.

(Beirut) -- Countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) should
bring their national laws on domestic workers up to the standards
set by the International Labour Organization (ILO) Domestic Workers
Convention. All six countries should ratify the international
treaty promptly.

The six GCC countries -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) -- are considering adopting a
standard contract for domestic employment that would be made
mandatory for all employers. It would include provisions for a
weekly day of rest and paid annual and sick leave, and give workers
the right to keep their own passports instead of having the
employer hold it. But the contract falls short of the protections
provided to other workers under the labor laws of these countries,
which, for example, limit the hours of work and contain enforcement
mechanisms.

"A mandatory standard contract will protect domestic workers more
than the current legal void does, but falls far short of the
comprehensive legal reforms needed to end abuse of domestic
workers," said Tamara Alrifai, Middle East and North Africa
advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "As long as GCC
governments shortchange domestic workers compared to other workers,
they are giving license to employers to treat them worse as well."

An estimated two million people are employed as domestic workers in
GCC countries. Most are women from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India,
Nepal, the Philippines, and Ethiopia. As Human Rights Watch has
documented through numerous reports, many of these workers, who
clean, cook, and take care of children, report a wide range of
abuses.

They cite wages that go unpaid for months or years or are lower
than initially promised, a lack of weekly rest days, verbal and
physical abuse by employers, and restrictions on leaving the
household. The kafala sponsorship system, which ties the
immigration status of migrant workers in the host country to their
employers, makes it difficult for workers to leave their employers,
even in cases of confirmed abuse.

Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait, and Oman exclude domestic workers from
their labor laws completely. Kuwait has a mandatory standard
contract for domestic workers that provides some protections,
though significantly fewer and weaker ones than those in the
country's labor law. However, in abusive situations -- such as
nonpayment of wages, confinement in the home, or legal sanctions
for quitting employment -- workers have little access to the justice
system to seek enforcement of the protections the contract
provides. Bahrain's 2012 overhaul of its labor law expanded some
protections to domestic workers, such as providing them annual
vacations, and codified others, including access to mediation in
labor disputes. However, it failed to provide other basic
protections, such as weekly rest days, a minimum wage, and limits
to hours of work.

Saudi Arabia adopted a regulation in July 2013 that guarantees
domestic workers nine hours of rest daily, one day off a week, and
one month of paid vacation after two years. The nine hours of rest
means domestic workers can be asked to work up to 15 hours a day,
whereas the law limits other workers to eight hours of work daily.

Media sources report that Qatar's cabinet accepted a draft domestic
workers law for consideration in September. The UAE's draft law
[18] on domestic workers,proposed in 2012, includes some positive
reforms, media reports say, such as guaranteeing a weekly day off,
but also would impose harsh criminal sentences on those who
"encourage" a domestic worker to quit her job or offer her shelter
after she has left her employer. Neither Qatar nor the UAE have
made these draft laws public.

The groundbreaking International Labour Organization's Domestic
Workers Convention, adopted in 2011, establishes the first set of
global labor standards for domestic workers, guaranteeing them the
same basic rights as other workers. Additional protections address
situations particular to domestic work, such as time they are not
working but required to be available and on-call. The convention
entered into force for countries that had ratified it on September
5, 2013.

Governments that ratify the treaty must put in place measures for
labor inspection and enforcement and establish effective,
accessible complaint mechanisms. They must also adopt all necessary
and appropriate measures to protect domestic workers against abuses
and fraudulent practices by private employment agencies, including
by considering bilateral or multilateral agreements with countries
that send the workers.

Human Rights Watch has documented numerous cases in which agencies
provided little or distorted information about the work domestic
workers would do, and then failed to assist workers who wished to
leave abusive employers. Human Rights Watch urges GCC countries to
ratify ILO Convention 189 and to amend their labor laws and the
proposed standard contract to conform to the treaty. This includes
provisions to protect domestic workers from harassment and violence
and the confiscation of their passports.

The GCC contract should meet the minimum standards set out in
article 7 of the treaty: it should clearly specify the type of work
to be performed, daily and weekly rest periods, the provision of
food and accommodation, the terms for employers to send workers
back to their home countries at the end of their contract, and the
terms and conditions of termination of employment, including notice
periods.

GCC countries should make the most recent version of the draft
contract public to allow experts and others to comment on it before
they adopt it.

A report in October by Human Rights Watch, the International
Domestic Workers Federation, and the International Trade Union
Confederation (http://www.hrw.org/reports/2013/10/27/claiming-
rights) showed little progress in the Middle East and North Africa
in improving the conditions and protections of migrant domestic
workers. No country in the Middle East and North Africa has
ratified the ILO convention. Meanwhile, 25 countries have improved
legal protections for domestic workers, with many of the strongest
reforms in Latin America.

"Even though the majority of households in the GCC rely on domestic
workers, they have trailed other regions in providing the most
basic protections," Alrifai said. "There are a growing number of
models around the world on how to effectively protect the rights of
workers in the home."

The abuse of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia

With few opportunities at home, millions of poor, desperate men and
women from southeast Asia and the Horn of Africa migrate annually
to Saudi Arabia, where many are enslaved and badly abused, or even
killed.

Slavery is woven into the psyche of the kingdom. According to Saudi
scholar Ali al-Ahmed, a "culture of slavery pervades the country",
and although banned in 1964, when it is thought there were 30,000
slaves in the country, the barbaric practice of owning a fellow
human being still exists in the form of the internationally
condemned kafala sponsorship system. By tying the residency status
of migrant workers to their employers, the system grants the latter
total control, amounting to ownership.

Under the scheme employers confiscate the passports, money and
mobile phones of new arrivals; workers who want to change jobs or
leave the country must seek their employer's, consent who typically
refuse to give it. A "sub-contracting" scheme is also in operation,
with employers selling workers on. This Dickensian system, which
facilitates the abuse suffered by migrant workers, particularly
domestic staff, needs to be banned as a matter of urgency; labour
laws protecting migrant workers must be introduced and enforced,
and full access to consulate support made available.

Oil rich and abusive

Migrant workers make up a third (8 million) of the population and
over half the workforce in Saudi Arabia. They are mainly unskilled
labourers and domestic workers (jobs the Saudis don't want to do),
are inadequately protected by labour laws and are vulnerable to
exploitation and abuse by their employers, including excessive
working hours, wages withheld for months or years on end, forced
confinement, food deprivation, and severe psychological, physical
and sexual abuse. Women domestic workers "are also at particular
risk of sexual violence and other abuses."

A study by the Philippines-based Committee on Workers Overseas
Welfare says "70 per cent of [Filipino] workers employed as
caregivers or without a specific work qualification suffers
continuous physical and psychological harassment" in the oil rich
gulf state.

Lorraine, a 27-year-old Filipina, arrived in Saudi Arabia in 2010.
"When my boss came to pick me up." she says, "he tried to touch me
at once to see if I was available. In the first weeks I constantly
suffered his advances, which became more insistent every time I
refused." In nine months of employment Lorraine was raped five
times. She was beaten and insulted by the man's wife and fed on
bread and leftovers.

Large numbers of migrant workers relate similar stories, horrific
experiences causing many to fall into ill health and large numbers
to commit suicide. One such was an Ethiopian woman, who remains
anonymous, working as a maid in the northern province of Tabarja:
she hanged herself in her employer's home.

Racism is rife throughout the kingdom, from the royal top to the
rural bottom; it forms part of a nefarious cocktail of rigid
sectarianism, classism, clannism, and state-sponsored xenophobia
that underpins extreme exploitation. All migrant workers are
tarnished as "black" -- considered an insult relating to
marginalized groups -- with Ethiopians sitting at the bottom of a
hierarchy of prejudice that places migrants from the Philippines,
Malaysia and Sri Lanka ahead of their African cousins. Ethiopians
suffer the double injustice of being mistreated by their employers
and agents, and neglected by their own notoriously duplicitous
government -- the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front
(EPRDF) -- which offers its nationals little or no consular support.

Many African workers are Christians, but absolutely no churches are
officially allowed. As recently as this April, Saudi Arabia's Grand
Mufti, the most senior and most influential Sunni Muslim religious
and legal authority in the country, declared that all churches in
the Arabian Peninsula must be destroyed". In February this year the
Islamic religious police, or mutaween, raided an Ethiopian
Christian prayer meeting and made mass arrests. Six months earlier
35 Ethiopians were arrested and deported for engaging in Christian
worship.

Judicial indifference capital punishment

In addition to suffering extreme discrimination and violent
mistreatment, migrant workers who manage to escape abusive
employers are often victims of spurious criminal accusations.
According to Human Rights Watch, the "Saudi justice system is
characterized by arbitrary arrests, unfair trials and harsh
punishmentsâ€¦ [the] criminal justice system violates the most basic
international human rights standards and detainees routinely face
systematic violations of due process and fair trial rights".

Migrants, who often don't speak Arabic, are denied access to
translators and lawyers, and frequently are not allowed to contact
their embassies. In 2011 a 54-year old Indonesian worker, Ruyati
Binti Satubi Saruna, was tried, sentenced and decapitated without
being able to consult her government. More than 45 Indonesian
foreign maids are said to be on death row. Saudi families are known
to ask for up to 2 million US dollars in blood money in exchange
for the release of incarcerated women awaiting execution.

In 2012, the Guardian newspaper reported, Saudi Arabia executed at
least 69 people. The previous year it executed at least 79,
including five women, The death toll included one woman beheaded
for witchcraft and sorcery. The Saudi authorities are not
forthcoming with the total numbers imprisoned and living under the
shadow of the death penalty; however, Amnesty International said it
knew of more than 120 people -- mostly foreign nationals -- on death
row.

Violent expulsions

Over a million Bangladeshis, Indians, Filipinos, Nepalis,
Pakistanis and Yemenis have been repatriated since the "correction
campaign" -- arrest and expulsion -- was enforced on 4 November 2013
against migrants without the required legal documentation. The
expulsions are largely supported by Saudi society; many feel the
number of migrants has grown out of control since the oil boom of
the late 1970s and that the huge numbers of migrants in the kingdom
has impacted negatively on community life. With 12 per cent
unemployment, it is hoped the process of "clearing" will allow
Saud's to find more work.

During the crackdown migrants of different nationalities report
being mistreated by security personnel and civilian vigilante
groups; workers from the Philippines (numbering around 660,000)
reported being abused and "treated like animals". Ethiopians (of
whom 100,000 have been repatriated, with and without visas) have
been specifically targeted; men and women have been dragged through
the streets, beaten, raped and, according to Ethiopian Satellite TV
Esat, dozens have been killed, including women. Witnesses report
seeing two Ethiopian women killed by Saudi military vehicles, and
another beaten to death with an iron by soldiers.

Confined to repatriation centres that are little more than prison
camps, migrants relayed accounts of extreme mistreatment, poor
sanitation, lack of food and health care. According to reports
reaching Esat, thousands are hastily being taken from the camps to
the Yemen border and left without any provisions. Many returnees to
Ethiopia tell of violent treatment, and carry with them scars and
fresh wounds from beatings by Saudi employers, police and or
civilian mobs.

Fanning prejudice and hatred

Leading up to the routing of migrants, the Saudi media and
authorities have spent months branding foreign workers as criminals
and stirring up anti-migrant sentiment to justify the crackdown.
Antagonism between Ethiopians and Saudis has been fanned by local
press reports blaming Ethiopian female domestic workers for brutal
attacks against Saudi employers. In July, Saudi officials claimed
that over 200 Ethiopian women had been detained in two months for
"psychological problems", prompting the authorities to temporarily
ban the recruitment of Ethiopian workers to the country.

Over 190,000 Yemeni migrant workers have been sent home, causing
severe deterioration in living conditions in Yemen. From the glass
and steel mountains of Jeddah and Riyadh, they were sending up to
200 dollars a month each to their families, money desperately
needed for daily living. The International Organization (IOM) for
Migration says "we are looking at approximately 5 million dollars
lost in remittances [to Yemen] for the months of October and
November alone". Most Yemenis "are returning to areas with high
levels of food insecurity and malnutrition. The massive loss of
income will inevitably exacerbate this situation."

In June Filipino migrants sent over 2 billion dollars home, which
was "an all-time record. It was better than all foreign investments
(direct and indirect) combined," Arab News reports.

In 2011 migrant workers residing in Saudi Arabia sent 35.7 billion
dollars (double what it was just two decades ago) to their
families. The huge amount flowing out of the country makes Saudi
Arabia the second highest source of overseas payments in the world
-- the first being the USA. The single biggest recipient, with 30
per cent of the total is India, followed by Egypt, Pakistan and the
Philippines with almost 9 billion dollars each.

The IOM has been providing assistance to Yemeni returnees,
including health care, water, food and immediate necessities such
as clothing and footwear, and offers much needed support to
Ethiopian returnees: overnight accommodation, food, water, shoes
and money for transport to their places of origin. This is
essential short-term aid which will be gratefully received;
however, the immediate and ongoing hardships they and their
families face, the struggle of living without work, opportunities
or hope have gone nowhere. It is these underlying issues that make
the disadvantaged vulnerable, and causes people in Ethiopia, Kenya,
Somalia and southeast Asia to leave their homes and seek work
elsewhere.

Unless the root causes -- poverty, poor education and lack of
opportunities, together with extreme social and economic inequality
-- are dealt with, the danger is that many of those being
repatriated will endeavour to migrate elsewhere, perhaps illegally
with the aid of criminal gangs, placing themselves at risk of
further exploitation, abuse and even death.

The migrant crackdown in Saudi Arabia has unearthed a plethora of
poisonous practises, racism, hate and abusive methods in the
country. The violence meted out by security personnel and civilian
gangs on the city streets has revealed publicly the level of
extreme mistreatment suffered by thousands, perhaps hundreds of
thousands, of domestic workers hidden from view, trapped and
enslaved.

It is a society operating in defiance of all manner of human rights
that has been clearly seen and exposed.

As the thousands of Ethiopians protesting outside Saudi embassies
across the world have chanted, "shame on you, shame on you, shame
on you".

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org